Tothesea.I am curious of what you know about the history of your myth. Would you please answer my questions? I am not talking about traditions but what we actually have evidence for. Does it not bother you that NO CONTEMPORARY WRITERS Of the period Jesus was supposed to have lived wrote a single word about him? Have you read any of the early church fathers? If you are honstly searching for the truth, you can find this and many other details on the internet. Science has brought you the ability to use the internet. I came on these forums to learn the truth jusi as at one time I believed Santa was real, I believed Jesus was real, the Exodus, flood and on and on once I looked at the evidence I could not lie to myself even if it meant I got one more year of presents from my mom/Santa I had to admit mo0m was Santa.

Well, the problem is, it doesn't seem he does. Before you believed in him, he was going to send you to Hell. Eternal torture.

Do you have children? If they didn't worship you, would you send them to be tortured until they do?

Something about a loving god letting someone be tortured doesn't seem that loving.

Gods love is unconditional. He makes it rain on the just and unjust. He helps everyone, including unbelievers. We'll see what happens on judgment day, but for an example..he rescued me from my unbelief. I never would have turned to Him otherwise. So my example alone proves that God is trying to save everyone.

However, anyone can choose to know God, and if they do with sincerity, He will open the door.

You say this god exists. I choose to want to know this god. I am sincere. What happens now?

Your statement, made in sincerity, is faith that God does exist and that you wish to know Him. You've opened the door, and He promised that if you do that He will come into your life. As long as you keep that door open, He will let you know that He is there. This may be soon, even today, or it could take a little time..don't get frustrated if it doesn't happen right away..as long as you are sincere it will happen. Once it happens, and you know that He is real, seek after Him! With all your heart, make God the object of your desire. He will guide you into all truth. Good luck and God bless. I will pray for you.

Tothesea, I would like to know about this god of yours.You seem old enough to know about other gods so which one is yours? You say you know your god so please give us some details about what happened when it came to you and changed your life. What were the circumstances?

You say the world has a problem because of the lack of god's love as expressed by the hearts and minds and spirits of mankind. Is this love for your god or is it your god's love for mankind? I am not sure what you meant, although it seems the first interpretation is more meaningful. I will go with that one until you correct me.

Since I lived in China for some years, are you saying the Chinese don't love your god so "the world follows after death, and has earned its reward" I wonder what that means. I don't know but it sounds meanspirited.

Did your god tell you to do anything other than witness your conversion? After all, if there are such "problems" existing shouldn't you be doing something to correct the situation? What is the point of a god working with you and doing nothing for everyone else. No wonder others see a touch of arrogance.

I will get back to you on this. I am time limited on this computer. I am not ignoring you and will answer these questions.

I once had an Msc, but I flushed it down the toilet after I lost my mind. You raise all kind of interesting, well thought through and valid points on this website. I am a lunatic and I see you're all wrong. No matter how much sense you'll make, you'll never get it right. That's because you've never tried to comatise yourselves with an overdose of alcohol or amphetamine. You are steeped in delusion about what is really going on here. None of your arguments matter. They will fall to dust.

Gods love is unconditional. He makes it rain on the just and unjust. He helps everyone, including unbelievers. We'll see what happens on judgment day, but for an example..he rescued me from my unbelief. I never would have turned to Him otherwise. So my example alone proves that God is trying to save everyone.

tothesea

Trying to save everyone? Is he unable to?

Quote

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

So I'll ask you to answer the question again, please. If God is all loving, why does he send people to Hell for disbelief? If your parents tortured you everytime you disobeyed them, would you feel that they loved you? Would you expect your children to love you if you beat them when they didn't listen?

Blessed are those who hear Gods word and obey it. If everyone truly listened to God, and practiced in their lives what He taught them, then Heaven would dawn. And as I stated, I wasn't looking for God..He found me. I'm sorry but I don't fit your mold of people who seek God because they are sad and lonely or whatever desperation you think leads them to creating an illusion of His existence. However, I'm happy to inform you that not only is God very real, but you *will* be meeting Him someday soon.

tothesea

You got that a little bit wrong, there, mental midget.

RETARDED are those who have imaginary friends -- they live in a state of mental illness and delusion and can't see that they believe an illusion.

God -beings are not real. They are constructs of a superstitious people in order for those people to control other superstitious people.

The sooner you recognize that, they healthier you will be.

Logged

Not all those who wander are lost; some are buried in my backyard. . .

I came to a place in my life around that time of 27, where I started to really notice the world was changing for the worst.

In what way is the world changing for the 'worst'?

I was wondering the exact same thing. I don't see it at all. So it's certainly not some indisputable truth. How do you even get to that opinion? Selective thinking, I guess? :shrug Or maybe tothesea just watches too much television?

I suppose you can assume the world is getting "worse" for more Christians because more and more people are drifting away from their religion and their primitive, 2,000 year old Goatherder's Guide to The Universe... Science punches shotgun holes through Yahweh's turf on the daily. And since it's part of the belief system that people should follow a very specific dellusion in order to make their god happy, and less and less people do every day, I can easily see how a religious (and especially Christian) mindset will start interpreting everything as "worse".

"Of course things are getting worse! Less people think like *ME*!!! Nobody cares about my invisible friend! They laugh at my super-spooky magical murderbook that I've based my life around! They don't take me seriously anymore, and they're making Baby Jesus cry!"

And when you think everybody around you is going to be tortured for all eternity... f**k. Yeah, I'd think that would have to be a serious downer. That's gotta suck.

Maybe I'm off the mark here. Of course, unless tothesea actually starts ANSWERING the very simple questions and clarifies this stuff, I just have to go off assumptions. Gee whiz. This would be a lot easier if we could get some straight answers. But then he'd actually have to take a position and stick with it instead of offering vagueries, hand-waving, selective thinking and stonewalling.

Somehow, I don't see that happening.

But anyway, I definitely don't see things getting "worse." In fact, I think I see most things getting *better*. Largely thanks to advances in science, medicine, and the proliferation of knowledge, and the places that are becoming less religious.

Imagine that! In the 21st century, instead of remaining stagnant in bronze-age supertition, and encouraging education and critical thinking skills, SOCIETIES ADVANCE! The standard of living IMPROVES! People live longer, healthier, happier lives! Who'd a thunk it!?

Hell, even *WAR* has gotten "better". We actually have conventions that attempt to keep unneccesary suffering and civillian casualties to a minimum. War is hell and all, that will never change, but at least most societies recognize the barbarity of it and TRY to exercise a little damage control these days. Success and failure at maintaining those conventions varies of course, but I think it shows a definite improvement over something like, say, the crusades.

No, but I'm sure we'd be much better off if everyone kept thinking that leechings cure disease, rubbing bird's blood on yourself cures leporasy, and stoning disobdient slaves and rape victims for not marrying their rapist really kept people healthier and happier. Killing or banishing anybody who thinks or speaks outside of the social norm is a great way to diversify your genepool and enrich your culture. And the Father knows how much better off we'd be if pesky Evil-ution had never come along and given us those terrible vaccines for countless super-fun diseases. For realz.

Of course not EVERYTHING is better for EVERYBODY. Christians are certainly worse off in terms of economic and political power than they've ever been. Their impact on a societal level has decreased 1,000%, and their philosophical and "scientific" contributions have become a subject of ridicule, and even largely unwelcome. Being neutered on the global stage is rarely a "good thing" in the eyes of the eunuch.

Unfortunately, most of the few places that ARE "getting worse", seem to be doing so in large part BECAUSE of religion... Mostly in 3rd world countries that have the greatest needs for improvement. The expansion of Islam Extremisim, women as second class citizens, death to the nonbelievers, science is the devil... Christians disuading Africans from using birth control to stem the spread of AIDS... Theists of all kinds decrying "unnatural" scientific advances like G.E. crops that can prevent literally millions of people from starving to death, sexual repression spawning all manner of criminal and human-right infringing degenerates (even in the priesthood)... that sort of thing.

Simple human greed and prejudice contributes too, and oppressive governments do their fair share naturally, and so does misinformation. But religion's definitely doing it's part to make life more miserable for many, while not really helping anybody's standard of living to anywhere near the extent of, say, a source of clean water. Maybe a few missionaries help out here and there (they do a lot of damage too), but any aid they render is done equally as well by secular charities, without utterly destroying a community's ancestral traditions and cultures or saddling communities with all the lies, guilt, and other ugliness that comes with theism.

I mean damn. Anyone ever look into Mother Theresa's "Homes for the dying"? Great googly moogly! Most of those poor bastards would have been better off just loading up on cheap heroin and dying in a gutter!Really, what it sounds like to me, is this guy took 27 years to actually figure out how rough life can be, and how ambivilant the universe is to "good" and "evil", and it's scared the piss out of him.

I mean, the longer you live, the more good and bad things you're going to see. It's not a question of worse; it's a question of one negative-ass worldview that focuses on the accumulating "bad" things said person has witnessed over the course of X years. Apparently homeboy reached maximum capacity and it broke his brain.

Cue the religion. The "acceptable" way to justify a negative world-view and to become a judgemental prick to your fellow humans.

Err... Yeeeeah. The Father, huh? I think you need to call child protective services with a quickness, Mongo. Are you being intentionally dense? They're asking which religion or denomination's god you follow. Nobody gives a flying f**k what pet names you have for it. And don't say "Oh, I'm not religious." or "I don't follow a religion." Because SOMEBODY told you what "he" "liked" to be known as.

Just say which god we're talking about. We all know it's an Abrahamic one, or a S.P.A.G. through an Abrahamic prism. We see your rhetoric all the time. It's not original in the slightest, what with your cheesy, faux-profound 1st century poetics and fortune-cookie wisdom, and "The Father", and having it need to "save" people and whatnot. We can read you like a book. A really poorly written one.

Because when you do this transparent "hide being ambiguity" bullshit... You know, the whole "be vague and give an answer that's not really an answer" thing... it certainly doesn't win you any integrity points. I understand you want to leave yourself some wiggle room so that you can make s**t up as you go along and not be able to be pinned down to any one position, but that's the debate tactic of a grade-schooler.

You're not a grade-schooler, are you tothesea? You are a big boy, right? Surely you've got enough Faith to put your beliefs out in the open without fear, right? Afterall, you know the absolute TRUTH. So there's nothing to hide! Bring on the truth!

Besides, I'd think your god would be none-to-pleased that you're trying to defend it in such a dishonest, weasel-y way. Are you EMBARASSED? Like you can't let people see mom drop you off at the busstop?

Well, the problem is, it doesn't seem he does. Before you believed in him, he was going to send you to Hell. Eternal torture.

Do you have children? If they didn't worship you, would you send them to be tortured until they do?

Something about a loving god letting someone be tortured doesn't seem that loving.

Gods love is unconditional. He makes it rain on the just and unjust. He helps everyone, including unbelievers. We'll see what happens on judgment day, but for an example..he rescued me from my unbelief. I never would have turned to Him otherwise. So my example alone proves that God is trying to save everyone.

tothesea

Are you high? Your god is all-powerful. If it's "trying to save everyone", it fails at a pretty spectacular rate for an all-powerful being. And your example only proves that *YOU* had some sort of personal experience that convinced you of something. That's it.

It's exactly the same if I tried eating a fistfull of dogshit for the first time and loved it. It would not by any means prove that feces is universally delicious, let alone that people could survive on it.

I really really hope this guy's a troll. Otherwise we're dealing with someone who desperately needs a reality check via a rubberroom, straight jacket, and doctors with happy pills.

If someone says "I love you, but if you don't do exactly what I say until day X, I will torture you for the rest of your life" then that person is not showing unconditional love towards you. If you use the attribute "unconditional" it means there are no conditions. But clearly there are conditions to God's love.

An entity that will torture people if they don't do X (in this case that would be to believe in God) is not loving unconditionally.

Gods love is unconditional. He makes it rain on the just and unjust. He helps everyone, including unbelievers. We'll see what happens on judgment day... {emphasis Mine}

You see, tothesea, this is the problem in a nutshell. You say your god's love is unconditional, yet it has a "judgment day."

Does. Not. Compute.

Oh, as the Apocalypse has already come and gone (April 2, 2001) and your god lost to My coalition, I've taken the liberty of replacing Judgment Day with a potluck supper. Please bring a chicken dish of your choice.

2. I have limited access to the Internet, thus I have to restrict how much I can use the forum from time to time. Sometimes I may not be able to respond to comments to my questions right away. Nonetheless, whenever I get a chance, I do read and consider all the comments and appreciate your help very much (well, the sincere answers, anyway). Your answers are very important to me.

Ah, so you are obviously talking about the ancient Egyptian sun-god Ra... did you know he created all things, even me and you? Isn't that wonderful!? I'm glad you have chosen Ra over all other gods, as Ra is the one and only true god...

Logged

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I can tell you that regardless of what logical proofs you can come up with to dispute the bible, or what hypocrisy you can point out in believers behavior, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Quote

I can tell you that regardless of what logical proofs you can come up with to dispute the [Qur'an], or what hypocrisy you can point out in believers behavior, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Quote

I can tell you that regardless of what logical proofs you can come up with to dispute the [Baghavad Gita], or what hypocrisy you can point out in believers behavior, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Quote

I can tell you that regardless of what logical proofs you can come up with to dispute the [Book of What is in the Duat], or what hypocrisy you can point out in believers behavior, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Can you explain why the above substitutions would not be equally valid, if stated by someone who had "direct experience" of Allah, Brahman, or Osiris?

What I am trying to say is that knowing God has nothing to do with your mind. Nothing you can conceive of has any bearing on Gods existence or non-existence. Until He comes to you personally, and lets you know, you don't know Him at all. You can't conceive of Him. It seems like nonsense. There is a lot more going on in reality though than what you can see. From what I have witnessed, there is no way for any human mind to perceive God unless God decides to reveal Himself to that person, period. They will continue to believe whatever it is they believe until God decides, for whatever reason, that it's time.That time for many of you may never come.

So you're just such a special little snowflake, that the omnimax Creator of a hundred billion galaxies tore through the dimensions of time and space--to end famine and AIDS in Africa? To bring enlightenment to the whole world? No--to reveal his presence to you, and you alone. Yeah. I'm sure he created the whole Cosmos just so that the person behind the Internet moniker "tothesea" could exist. Right?

BTW, whichever deity this is that has revealed itself to you, it cannot be the deity of the Bible. Here's why:

Quote

And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.

--Matthew 28:18-20

Quote

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

--Mark 16:15

Quote

But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

--I Peter 3:15

According to your personal revelation, all of this is futile. There is simply no point in talking to anyone about God, since only those (assuming there are any besides you, God's favorite magic unicorn) to whom God reveals himself directly through inner experience can have any chance of "getting it" anyway. All of the sermons in the Gospels and Acts, all of the Epistles, all of the writings of the Church Fathers and the great theologians through the ages--vanity, all is vanity, useless gusts of words addressed to the mind, with which the real God has nothing to do.

What purpose can there possibly be for a book, any book, when the only way to have valid knowledge of God is by being one of the select few to whom God opts to reveal himself directly through inner experience? A book requires reading, and hermeneutics, and studies of the meanings of words in ancient Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, efforts to understand ancient idioms and cultural practices that illuminate the meaning of the texts, an entire science of textual criticism to compare the various manuscripts, etc., etc.. All of which you, the Great Revelator, sweep aside as so much dust and ashes.

Do not be surprised if the rest of Christendom is not impressed.

Of course, the relationship between you and the rest of Christendom is not really our problem. We have no dog in that fight. What is perhaps more relevant to us is your claim that the Divine, however defined, can only be apprehended through a special inner experience. First, this claim rests on the unspoken premise that the Divine does not and/or cannot act directly upon external reality. If it could, then we could observe external reality by means of the scientific method, and note a pattern of observable events that are consistent with the existence and action of a particular sort of Divine agency, but not with atheistic naturalism or other conceptions of the Divine.

On the other hand, if the true Divine nature can only be known through a revelation to the hidden recesses of the selves of certain lucky and special people, it follows that as far as external reality is concerned, the existence of the Divine is indistinguishable from its non-existence. Universe can be expected to behave exactly as it would if gods (or at least the True God of your special revelation) did not exist. When it comes to reality, and our anticipation of how reality will behave, your expectations must be the same as ours. You must join us in expecting a naturalistic Universe that does not behave as if it had a God in it. Or to encapsulate it in a single phrase:

You live in the same godless Universe we do.

Now, the second problem for your approach: you are far from the only person claiming to have had a special, mystical revelation of the Divine--and most, if not all of those other claimed revelations differ from yours in terms of the Deity or Deities they purport to reveal. How can we know that you, and not Neale Donald Walsh or the authors of A Course in Miracles, or Mohammad (the Qur'an), or Amazonian shamans, or any one of a wide range of mystic experiencers is The Right One?

In accordance with what you've claimed, it is impossible even in principle to apply any sort of reality-test to claims of Divine revelation. If it were possible, then reality-testing, rather than Divine revelation, would be the way to discover the truth about the Divine. So, if we have had no mystical experiences of our own, we have no reason to trust yours over the myriads of other mystical experiences reported by other people, and reality will not validate yours over the others. If we have had mystical experiences of our own, and if we want to accept some mystical experience as veridical, we should trust our own rather than yours. After all, we would know our own experiences happened. We'd have to take your word for it that yours did.

However, if it is true that no experimental or observational test made on external reality can be used to compare purported revelations (because the Divine putatively acts only within such revelations and is otherwise un-observable and undetectable), then we have no reason to take any of them seriously. No matter which particular revelation one might want to believe, one must also believe that it is possible for all those other mystics to be deceived or in error, and there is no way, even in principle, to know that they are wrong and you are right. At a minimum, all-but-one of the mystical revelations of the Divine are wrong. So, in the case of any particular revelation, it is far more probable that it will be one of the vast mass of wrong ones, than that it will be the One True Revelation.

And since you must agree with us that all other mystic revelations are false, there is no reason for us to accept your revelation as valid, even if we should happen to experience a revelation that agrees with yours. After all, there's a billion Hindus in the world, and countless millions of them, especially their Yogis and Gurus, report mystical experiences that (to them) validate Hinduism. Since they're all wrong, and they don't (and can't) know it, we likewise cannot know that we (and you) could not also be wrong.

Which is more likely? That the Divine (however defined) would: A) Camouflage its existence so perfectly that no one could possibly know it was there, and B) then reveal itself to one person or a few persons; Or, that the one person or few persons claiming to have received the true Divine revelation is/are lying or in error? Since you would have to agree with us that the vast majority of people claiming mystical experiences of the Divine are lying or in error (to the extent that their revelations differ from yours), it follows that you are also far more likely to be lying or in error. "But I just know it's true!" is something every mystic of every persuasion will tell you when it comes to their own experiences. Just as inner conviction and felt certainty do not validate other people's revelations, they cannot validate yours.

To summarize:

1. Universe behaves exactly as it would if there were no supernatural Divine agents.[1]

2. At a minimum, nearly all people claiming mystical revelation are lying or in error.

3. There is no way, even in principle, to demonstrate that any purported experience of the Divine is true, even if the experience is one's own.[2]

A simple application of parsimony (Occam's Razor) to this means that claims of mystic revelation of the Divine should be rejected.

Don't try to convict God of sin or insanity because the world doesn't make sense to you, or doesn't seem to indicate that God could be good.

Actually, that's not where our disagreement lies. The world does make sense to us. Scientists can accurately model the behavior of reality from the sub-atomic scale all the way up to the expansion and gravitational behavior of the entire known Cosmos, all without ever having to employ a variable in their equations to account for the existence and/or action of any invisible supernatural beings. Even you must agree with this, since your main claim is that "God" can only be known through subjective experience.

Debating the question of whether a particular god is "good" or not is merely an argument over the moral status of a fictional character, like debating whether or not Darth Vader ought to be considered the hero, or the villain of the Star Wars movies.

Your statement, made in sincerity, is faith that [Isis] does exist and that you wish to know [Her]. You've opened the door, and [She] promised that if you do that [She] will come into your life. As long as you keep that door open, [She] will let you know that [She] is there. This may be soon, even today, or it could take a little time..don't get frustrated if it doesn't happen right away..as long as you are sincere it will happen. Once it happens, and you know that [She] is real, seek after [Her]! With all your heart, make [Isis] the object of your desire. [She] will guide you into all truth.

Therefore, if you don't end up believing in Isis, that's proof that you were insincere, therefore, you're a naughty, naughty boy/girl and thus deserving of punishment in the hereafter, right? I shall eagerly await news of your conversion to the worship of Isis, so that when your heart is weighed against the Feather of Ma'at on the day of your Judgment, that you will not be found wanting and be turned over to the Devourer.

Logged

"The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks."

...he rescued me from my unbelief. I never would have turned to Him otherwise. So my example alone proves that God is trying to save everyone.

Nope, I'm afraid it doesn't. Let me show you why.

The vast majority of us here do not believe.Your god has NOT rescued us from our unbelief. Without that rescue, we will never turn to Him otherwise.So the fact that god has rescued YOU, but not ME (or US) is proof that your god is NOT trying to save everyone.

What your example shows is that your god has already picked and chosen the people he wants to save, and has already decided who will not be saved.

Your god, therefore, has already decided - before I was born - that he would not save me. So he created me knowing that I would be destined for hell. Your god sounds like a complete shit to me, TSS.

1. How do you know it truly was God contacting you, what did he actually do? Did he speak to you, write something down, give you a massage or project a vision? Or was it that you just had a feeling of unconditional love come over you?

2. Did you know that love (unconditional or otherwise) is no different biochemically from eating about 3kg of chocolate or drinking 3-4 pints of beer? Hence it doesn't take any kind of deity to contact you to feel these sorts of feelings.

3. Have you read what your so called loving God has supposedly done according to his handbook the Bible? 1.8m deaths and about 3 saved lives if that, not unconditionally loving in my book.

4. Why, if so loving, would your God not attempt to help all those in extreme situations, if He's all powerful surely it's no trouble and if He's loving why wouldn't He?

5. If He is trying to save everyone why is He doing such a crap job of it for a supreme being? I mean Bill Gates has saved more people from misery in 2 years than your God has in 2,000 years so why aren't we bowing down to him?

6. If He is trying to save the world, why has he not just contacted all the major powers and told them to dismantle their weapons and help the poorer countries? Is he afraid Putin & Obama will overpower him and let Jaibao kick him in the balls? But seriously, as my icon picture proves, weapons are up, charity is down, not very effective at His job is He this God of yours?

7. How would you know if He wasn't just lying to you about his motives? Surely God can lie and create false feelings and anyone who says He wouldn't do is being ultracrepidarian as no mere mortal can understand God's motives, apparently.